Waiting for the IRS

The Internal Revenue Service or IRS has the sort of fearsome, even legendary reputation, that good tax agencies have. A good proxy for this is the number of scammers who pretend to be the IRS. I get a call from at least 1-3 scammers every week – some human, some automated voices – who tell me I’ve committed serious tax fraud. They seem to get past do not call lists or any attempts to block them. Some of these are downright amusing as they involve Indian accented guys calling as “Officer Smith.”

But, I digress.

I took the first such scam call seriously until I realized something was wrong. A bit of follow up google searching told me that the IRS will always send you a note by physical mail and won’t just call you and threaten arrest.

So, you can imagine the trepidation when a friend of mine received an actual physical letter from the IRS saying there were inconsistencies in her tax return and that she owed them money. They said they would get back to her in a few weeks on the exact amount. This friend happens to be a former CPA who does her own taxes. So, she paid a tax pro to audit her financials and began working through her taxes over the past few years. She wasn’t sure what she had done wrong but this all sounded serious.

A few weeks turned into a couple of months. And, this issue continued to niggle with occasional worry and anxiety.

They finally got back to her this week. The outstanding amount of 26 dollars.

We had a good laugh.

There’s a life lesson about focusing on things we control in here somewhere.